HAMADA Shoji

Hamada Shoji (1894—1978) was born in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture. He began to study pottery at the age of sixteen and went on to become one of Japan’s most celebrated modern potters. He is especially well known in the UK for his close association with Bernard Leach, with whom he studied and worked for three years in St Ives, Cornwall, in the early 1920s. After returning to Japan in 1924, Hamada established a studio in Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo. He was designated a Living National Treasure in 1955 and awarded an Order of Cultural Merit in 1968. A large circular stoneware dish made by Hamada, similarly decorated with a cross design in cream slip, is in the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, while a bottle with facetted sides is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.